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Sharjah energy company Crescent Petroleum and its affiliate Dana Gas achieved 30 per cent increase in production capacity in one of their Kurdish assets, beating earlier production estimates, the companies said in a statement.

The increase in capacity from the Khor Mor field in the semi-autonomous region of Iraq is higher than the previous target of 25 per cent that the two companies, through their Pearl Petroleum consortium, had set for 2018 following de-bottlenecking of the project's processing facilities.

The increase in production capacity from the field to 400 million square feet per day of gas and 15,000 barrels per day of condensate is “the beginning of a new chapter of expansion”, said Crescent Petroleum chief executive Majid Jafar.

“[We] will see a further investment of over $600 million over the coming few years and a more than doubling of production again,” he said.

The consortium, which also operates the Chemchemal gas fields in Kurdistan region of Iraq has invested more than $1.4 billion (Dh5.14bn), with total cumulative production of 250 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, resulting in fuel cost savings of around $20bn for the northern semi-autonomous region, the companies said.

It is further investing to raise production to 900 million square feet per day of gas over the next three years, along with increased output of “associated liquids”.

The gas capacity increase from Khor Mor will largely feed into domestic power plants. Earlier this week, Iraq’s federal oil ministry reached an agreement with the Kurdish Regional Government for the export of crude from Kirkuk’s oilfields via Turkey’s Ceyhan port.